I have titled this piece “Lost Arts” for two primary reasons. One, the things mentioned hereafter are arts. They take practice, skill, and assistance in order to master them. Some people are born with more of a natural inclination towards these arts than others, but the human condition prevents anyone from reaching perfection.
Secondly, they are lost arts, not dead arts. I fear we have misplaced them, traded them in unknowingly, or even cast them aside, but they can be found once more. It will take effort to recover them, a great search within ourselves and of the world around us, and we may very well despair they are gone entirely, but it is not so. There is great hope, for really these are arts that cannot die. They have always been a part of living this short, beautiful, difficult life on Earth. When it appeared there was not even one righteous in the land, there was Noah. They are not extinct. They are lost.
They can’t remain in the abyss, though. They are too important. We must pull them from the darkness and rejoice at having found them. Then we must share them.
The Art of Patience
The late Roger Scruton remarked in one of the last public discussions of his life that people loathed his opinion and his person because they didn’t have the patience to read what he wrote or listen to what he said. I believe that to be not only an observation from his own experience, but a diagnosis of an issue plaguing our current era. We no longer take the time, often claiming we simply don’t have it, to read the work of those we admire, and certainly not the work of those we oppose.
If we do not possess patience, we are not truly listening. If we are not listening, then we are not understanding in full. If we are not understanding in full, then we are making judgments, sometimes with great consequences, on matters we know very little about, though we might feel very strongly about them.
It’s like an interaction with an energetic child. They are talking and talking and talking some more. You nod or mutter “uh-huh” to every point or question as you do another task with your mind set on other matters. Maybe they are the same child that bothers you often, so you are even less inclined to give ear to their thoughts. As the child walks away, you realize you heard only part of what they were saying and have absolutely no idea what they are off to do. The issue stems from the fact that you had no patience, therefore you were a poor listener. If you practiced patience in that moment, you’d have knelt down or taken them into your arms and heard their wild tales and funny questions. You would have understood why the child wanted your attention and what it was they were relaying to you. Instead, you know almost nothing.
This decline in patience can certainly be attributed, at least in part, to our use of technology. We get instantaneous information of any kind, wherever we are in the world. We flick our fingers across a screen and drink from the fire hydrant of stimulation. The only delay comes when our iPhone has aged a few years. We get what we want and we get it quickly, all the while missing the heights and depths of a slower, more patient life. We have the same amount of time in a day that we have always had, but we simply choose to spend it consuming fast food and fast information.
Patience is vital. It’s vital in our closest relationships and in our treatment of those we disagree with. If we enter into a conversation or even our own thought life without it then we are starting from behind. We are dedicating only a portion of our energy and attention to something or someone, rather than the whole of them. No matter the ideology of the person or the piece, they deserve a whole. We could afford them that if we chose to.
The most pressing matters also require the greatest thought and care. The big issues of our time will not be solved after a quick look at an aesthetic Instagram post or a skim of a daily newsletter. They demand our complete attention and focus. The solutions will often come from collaboration, debate, and careful study. Patience is required to adequately do all three.
You can be patient and arrive at the same conclusion you would have had you been impatient, but that conclusion will be supported by much more than our inklings, feelings, or previously held beliefs.
Patience is a virtue.
The Art of Cleaning Your Window
In the same conversation mentioned previously, Scruton made a comment that has stuck with me. He suggests that we should look out the window with greater frequency than we look at our screens. He essentially makes the argument that we are missing a great deal by not spending time in observation of the real world. Much like I thought his point on patience to be a diagnosis of a current issue, I believe the practice of looking up and out to be a solution to many current issues.
Bad news sells. We know this well, yet we continue to crawl back to the same sources that seek to monetize our fear. We put up no fight against the algorithms and allow the cynicism and the anger to creep into our minds and hearts. We haven’t the patience to look elsewhere, or maybe we are so stuck in our echo chamber that we have simply stopped trying to get out. We’ve been brainwashed to forget that the human experience is nuanced and complicated. We’re stuck in a purely dichotomous, bleak, cynical view of the world.
Abigail Shrier recently published a column featuring Harvard psychiatrist Harold Bursztajn, and his commentary illuminates this point perfectly:
“Cyberspace emphasizes binary logic,” he told me, a heavy Polish-Yiddish accent sleeving his words. “This generation seems to be thinking in either/or terms. One of the things I have always loved about modal logic is you can answer yes and no at the same time. But I think in this cyberspace, everything-goes faster-age . . . people subscribe to more conventional stereotypes and dichotomies, rather than being able to go ahead and take the time to consider complexities; that you can feel both ways about some things.”
Regardless of the cause, the remedy is a good, hard, in person look at the world that surrounds us. God has gifted us a marvelous place to plant our flags. The sun rises and sets, every single day. The rhythm of the seasons and their turning spurs us on to newness and hope. The birds sing for us, always. Children laugh with abandon at the park next to my apartment every day, unless it’s raining. Then I get the sweet music of the drops on my bedroom window as I fall asleep. There is beauty sewn into this place.
There is also beauty sewn into us. There are wonderful people with golden hearts beating in their chests, dedicated to light and to goodness. People as flawed as the rest of us, but who are committed to fighting the brokenness in themselves and in their spheres of influence. People that will never be recognized or rewarded for their deeds are carrying them out every day in service to those around them. They love their cities, their schools, their churches, their clubs, and as long as they draw breath they won’t see them come to ruin. They are rich and they are poor. They are black and white and brown and every color in between. Yet their identity fades away and they are only described as “good people”. Salt of the Earth. There is an army of them. Drop the device. Clean your dirty window and see. Then climb right on out of it and join them.
The Art of Grace and Mercy
Grace is getting what we do not deserve. It’s sister, mercy, is not getting what we do deserve. My entire existence is built upon them. We can’t survive without them, yet we are trampling them underfoot for some perverted version of justice.
We seem to think that grace and mercy are signs of weakness, or if they’re extended to one we dislike or with whom we disagree, we are condoning their behavior and beliefs. That is a terrible miscalculation. Grace and mercy offer invites to try again, to get back up, to rethink, to seek forgiveness, to explain. They are, in simplest form, an acknowledgment that we are human beings. We will be offended, misunderstood, and belittled. We will also offend, misunderstand, and belittle. It is blatant arrogance to believe otherwise. Therefore, we qualify to both receive and give grace freely.
Only a fool would honestly say they’ve no need of grace and mercy. In some capacity, we are recipients of them every single day of our lives. In my own faith, I know God’s grace to be my very lifeline. I fail, and he extends grace to me. I swim in it. It is liberation.
Grace and mercy are not weaknesses. It takes more strength to offer them than to harbor resentment and to seek revenge. Anyone can give in to their anger and their sadness until they transform into an insatiable appetite for another to feel pain. In demanding retribution for even the smallest sins, in withholding grace, mercy, and forgiveness, we effectively strap shame and guilt onto the backs of the other. This is a crushing weight. If we are honest, though, we often want to crush them. All the while, the effect of that kind of negative emotion ends up crushing us, too. We must fight the urge for revenge and find resolve, especially when our points of conflict are only varying ideas, no matter how much they vary.
Grace and mercy are healing. They are a soothing balm, and we should do all we can to heap it upon our wounds.
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We don’t need a revolution, some grand overthrow of all things we deem broken. We’ll throw the baby out with the bath water in that case. We are fallible humans, so whatever we build in place of what we destroy, however incorruptible we may think it to be, will inevitably be torn down and thrown out, too. History tells that tale from old, and we would be wise to have humility regarding our own ideas. What we need is profound restoration, and that restoration lives in old, universal principles that have guided us across a great span of time and culture.
We feel and see that our institutions have been eroding underneath us, sweeping away our trust and hope. In order to revitalize them, we must revitalize ourselves, for we are the institutions. We are the people that create them and lead them. The systems are only as strong as the individuals they’re composed of. We have good bones to work with. We simply need to get them back onto solid ground and slow the erosion.
All of this implicates me, and you, and everyone. Will we be patient? Will we bravely step out into the world? Will we extend and receive grace and mercy? Will we give of our time and efforts to rebuild a sturdy foundation? If we are unwilling, then we are the very problems we rail against and we should no longer rail, for we rail in vain as hypocrites. There is no escaping ourselves in an attempt to better this place, so let us patiently enter a messy world with arms full of grace and a mind set to renewal.
It’s not naive. It’s a way forward, and we can start now.